


Din'Anshirem

by Domina



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Dragon Age Kink Meme, F/M, Lore Speculation, Post-Trespasser, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 22:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4894855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Domina/pseuds/Domina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A response to this prompt on the Kink!meme:</p><p>"Let's say Solas loses this rebellion war against the Inquisitor. He is badly injured, left alone in a quiet place. The pain and fear are destroying him, driving him mad. (Since the tombstone in the Fade showed that "dying alone" is his greatest fear) But in his very last minute, Lavellan comes. As she embraces and comfort him, Solas finally finds peace, realizing what this world really meant. Eventually, the Dread Wolf spends his last breath kissing his love, as she forgives the crime he has done. </p><p>+really need some sadness here :')<br/>+the place and the reasons why he is there are all yours to describe.<br/>+my inquisitor's first name is 'Mahvir', i'll be grateful to see her name in this story. But it's okay if you want to alter the name."</p><p>Link <a href="http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/15543.html?thread=58794679#t58794679">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Din'Anshirem

_“A spirit becomes a demon when denied its original purpose.”_

_Oh, how I knew,_ Solas mused, recalling the conversation with his beloved in _Dirthavaren_. How he knew now, lying in utter darkness beneath a bone-crushing layer of rocks. He had led a rebellion, yes, against everything this world seemed to stand for; but the Earth took its victory in the end, and he lay now within its grasp. A fitting death sentence, it seemed, for passing his own upon Thedas. _Of course, it was real. All of it was_ real, he thought. How could he have denied it then? How could he deny this world’s realness _now_ , when even the land itself fought for the right to continue existing?

And even if he _could have_ bent the world to his will, how could he have brushed aside the possibility that the Inquisitor, set ablaze by her love, would develop the iron willpower of a god? He had known that her blood was ancient from the moment he seized her hand. He watched her destroy  _gods_  - some old, some new, some would-be - well before she came for him.

And he had known when she suddenly began disappearing from the Fade for nights, then months at a time. Whenever she returned, spirits would whisper her name in fear. He had known when he started to sense her from leagues away, and when she finally rose to meet him on the mountain, carried upwards in a storm of green flames.

He had known, especially, in the moment that she seized _his_ hands. When he looked into her eyes and saw only righteous fire, fire so bright he briefly wondered if she was the Maker before being blinded by her emerald light. When feeling himself pass through the Veil, one last time, as he fell to the Earth.

Recalling the sight of his beloved makes his heart swell with pride, until the rocks start to press more insistently on his chest. He cannot move his fingers - cannot feel them, even - else he would brush away his tears. They trickle down as freely as water from a dam, finally cracking after a millennium of fortitude.

As stillness begins to seep into his bones, he looks back upon the beginning of this wretched affair. _I should never have taken form,_ he thinks mournfully. _Not even for Her_. It is an asinine, desperate regret: Solas knows how he had been called forth, knows that he could have given himself new life after finally burning Her marks away. The scar did not have to run so deep, and run him ragged.

Even a thousand years’ rest could not remove the fatigue, nor the constant pulling of the Veil upon his person. Like a hungry wolf pup feasting on its mother’s kill, it took more and more of him as the years passed. But he had known from the beginning that he was running a fool’s errand in trying to reverse what pride had wrought. That had not stayed his hand as he worked to unravel the Veil _and_ remain alive after the attempt to lead his people.

He does not need the sudden tingling sensation that dances upon his skin, nor the abrupt blossoming of orange behind his closed eyelids, to know that the rocks which formed his tomb are being lifted. He can hear a feminine voice in the distance, light as Dalish wind chimes ( _if only they had known what those were for,_ he muses absently).

“Solas!” it cries out. “Solas!”

“Wisdom, once,” he sighs in a voice too quiet to be heard by the living. The light encourages him to open his eyes, but he wills them shut out of shame. He cannot not bear to meet her gaze. Not after this.

“Damn you,” he hears his beloved say, not unkindly, as she takes him into her arms.

“ _Ir'abelas_ , _v_ _henan,"_  he whispers back, _"_ for everything.”

"Shhh." Fingers calloused by years of gripping a staff caress his face. "I told you that I'd always find you," she adds softly, in a wavering voice.

 _To the end,_ he realizes, as a pall of cold descends upon him. “ _Vhenan, ma’varemah-“_

 _“_ I know.” The tears – were they hers, or his? – begin to cover his face like the waters of a final rite, washing away the guilt grain by grain. Her embrace reminds him of the summer rains in Seheron. “I could-“

“ _Te,_ ” he interrupts her quickly, before pride creates another mistake. “This must be. Do not let fear guide your hand as it did mine.” A long pause follows, and he prays that she heeds his advice. That at least he was able to impart that much wisdom before returning home. A sob begins to pierce the air, is stifled, and serves as answer enough.

“I will remember you,” comes the promise, passionate and firm. “Your name will not leave my lips until I see you again, watching me from afar.”

A faint smile wins against the stillness, sliding victoriously across his face. “If that is to be, my love,” he breathes, “I will do more than watch you from afar.” He can hear her laugh bitterly through her pain, like the time when a High Dragon slashed her abdomen. He had been horrified, then awestruck, by the way she did so while holding a glowing, bloodied hand over the wound. The dragon lost its head shortly after to a cackling, fierce, _frighteningly_ graceful foe.

At any other moment, the memory would have made him feel light with mirth. In this one, the burgeoning sense of lightness heralds the end, the last leg of his _Din’Anshiral_. He can scarcely feel the buzz of magic, even though it draws closer and closer still.

 _You were right,_ he muses as she begins to rock gently. She had been his anchor all along, trying to ground him long enough to show him that all had not been lost. Unbidden come the visions of joyful human children, playing in an open field under the watchful eye of elders. Of Cole ( _forgive me_ , Solas thinks) slipping honey into Divine Victoria’s wine. Of Cullen, holding the hand of a lyrium-addled Templar. Of Cassandra, embracing a sobbing Seeker - and even Rainier, leading a group of Wardens in a battle against a broodmother. He envisions his beloved, writhing below him in an unbridled ecstasy even  _She_ never reached -

A sharp jolt of realization crackles through him when he suddenly recalls the way in which slaves united during the rebellion in Tevinter. They sang, they rebuilt, and struggled valiantly to work together after seizing that ancient hold. _It was not I who freed them_ , he realizes. _They freed themselves._ For the first time, he hopes with fervor that they will survive what comes next.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.” He hears his lover murmur over and over, and her chant gently chases the visions away. He wishes that he could say more – whole tomes more – but can only take solace in the hope that she will one day find a few loose stones, slightly different from the others in the floor of his old rotunda. They will have to be enough.

“And I love you. I would feel your lips one last time, _vhenan_ ,” he manages. The warmth shifts into a tighter embrace, as if it could hold him here longer. Before long he can faintly smell traces of a storm on her skin, and feel her soft mouth press against his. 

_If there is a Maker, thank you. Thank you for ensuring that I would not be alone, even though I deserve it._

He sighs without reservation into the kiss, surrendering the last of himself to her before the Veil can snatch it away. He can taste a mixture of honey and herbs on her lips, with a faint touch of lyrium.

Its song is the last thing he hears.

**Author's Note:**

> A sincere thank you to OP for giving me the opportunity to stretch my fingers after a million years of not writing. I hope that this was to your liking, but I hope even **more** that someone else will post after me and wrench all of our hearts out. I omitted the Inquisitor's name because I may use this later, as part of the prologue for another prompt.
> 
>    
> Elvhen Words Used:  
> Dinan'shiral: the Final Journey/Path of Death  
> Dinan'shirem: the Final Journey/Path of Death, Walked  
> Dirthvaren: the Exhalted Plains  
> Ir abelas: I am sorry (approximate?)  
> Ma'varemah: I am going to depart/leave  
> Te: contraction of _tel_ , do not  
> Vhenan: heart (endearment)
> 
> My minor dabblings in Elvhen would not have been possible if not for the hard work of FenxShiral et al. via [Project Elvhen.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3719848?view_adult=true&view_full_work=true)
> 
> Also, if I've screwed up the Elvhen somewhat, let me know in the comments and I'll correct it if possible!


End file.
